Hydrogen Highway revisited

Is the plan by Arnold Schwarzenegger — and Gordon Campbell —
for a hydrogen highway visionary, or just hot air?

click to enlarge

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fuels up at one of the state's 24 hydrogen stations.

By Matt Palmquist

High Country News

“Shakespeare said, ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,
which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; but omitted, and all of life's
voyage is bound in shallows and regrets,’” intoned Terry Tamminen, secretary of
the California Environmental Protection Agency, when it was his turn at the
podium on an overcast morning in April 2004. "We are afloat upon such a
sea at this moment as we face our energy future. But who has the strength to
lift our ship of state on a tide of clean, renewable energy that will carry our
economy into the 21st century and beyond? Who has the wisdom to set us on
course to protect our air, water, public health, and the health of our economy?

"Who has the vision to set sail towards our energy
independence now?" Tamminen's answer, as Shakespeare could not have
predicted, was Arnold Schwarzenegger. The last-action-hero-turned-Republican
governor, who had won the recall election against Gray Davis the previous
October, was still in the honeymoon phase of his first term when he addressed
the large crowd of educators, automotive and energy executives and reporters at
the University of California at Davis that day.

"As you can see, this looks kind of like a movie set here,
right?" a beaming Schwarzenegger joked of the photo-op surroundings, which
included a gleaming, sky-blue bus with a promise painted on it: "Zero Emissions
— Cleans the Air As It Drives." Moments earlier he had drawn
"oohs" and "aahs" when he pulled up to the fuel pump in a
hydrogen-powered sports-utility vehicle.

"But of course it will be better," he said.
"Because what you see here today, this is the future of California and the
future of our environmental protection."

Schwarzenegger, heretofore synonymous in many environmentally
attuned minds with his proud ownership of a fleet of huge, gas-guzzling
Hummers, had come to Davis to announce Executive Order S-7-04, the
establishment of a California Hydrogen Highway Network. By 2010, the governor
vowed, every Californian would have access to hydrogen fuel along 21 of the
state's interstate highways, "with a significant and increasing percentage
of that hydrogen produced from clean, renewable sources."

Schwarzenegger's plan called for an initial 150 to 200
hydrogen-refueling plants throughout the state at an estimated cost of about
$90 million, to be funded with corporate, state and federal money. By the end of
the decade, Schwarzenegger said, he hoped to see 500,000 hydrogen-consuming
vehicles zooming along California roads.

But as the governor made clear, his vision of progress was
about both dollars and sense. "As I have said many times, the choice is
not between economic progress and environmental protection," said
Schwarzenegger, who, in topping off the SUV he'd arrived in, became the first
person to use the inaugural station on his own Hydrogen Highway. "Here in
California, growth and protecting our natural beauty go hand in hand. We have
an opportunity to prove to the world that a thriving environment and economy
can co-exist.